SuperAwesome and Poki aim to target online U.S. family gamers with kid-safe ads

U.K.-based startup SuperAwesome and the Poki online games playground have teamed up to create kid-safe AwesomeAds to family gamers in the U.S.

London-based SuperAwesome has created a digital advertising platform that the company says can safely target children without running afoul of privacy regulations. The deal shows that the growing digital kids market is a big opportunity, with industry estimates saying the market could grow to $2 billion by 2018.

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Online safety for kids came up in a big way recently after digital toymaker VTech was hacked, resulting in leaks of data about children.

In the exclusive partnership, the companies will roll out kid-safe advertising and brand integrations to kids and family gamers across Poki’s community in the U.S. SuperAwesome says that its platform is compliant with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, and it is already used by hundreds of brands and agencies including Hasbro, Lego, Warner Bros, OMD, Mediacom and Spin Master.

The platform can reach 250 million kids every month, including 90 million unique viewers in the U.S. Poki reaches 35 million monthly active users, including 2.3 million in the U.S.

Poki will integrate SuperAwesome’s platform into its online playground to make sure it delivers kid-safe, COPPA-compliant advertising, including brand integrations and sponsored games, to its U.S. audience. Poki’s entire US inventory will be made available to the top kids brands on the SuperAwesome platform in 2016.

“Engaging safely with kids on mobile and tablet has been a huge challenge for brands everywhere. Our partnership with Poki gives SuperAwesome’s brands and agencies family-friendly games from one of the fastest growing game companies in the U.S. for a completely safe, effective, COPPA-compliant environment,” SuperAwesome CEO Dylan Collins said in a statement.

Collins calls his platform “compliance as a service.” The ad server can be used by developers and publishers of kids’ apps to run safe ads from SuperAwesome’s kid brand partners. It curates ads so that they’re kid-appropriate, and they’re shown to kids using kid-focused apps. This helps brands reach their targets, and it generates ad revenue for the developers.

Michiel van Amerongen, cofounder of Poki, said in a statement, “Our collaboration with SuperAwesome will give Poki kids and family users in the US a better and safer online playground, in which they can discover and play age-appropriate games on all devices. We are happy to be joining forces with SuperAwesome’s platform as we further grow our presence in the U.S.”

SuperAwesome recently raised $7 million in a round of funding.

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Regulators have frowned on using aggressive tactics for in-app purchasing — the way that most modern apps monetize — with children. But SuperAwesome said its technology ensures that kids are not tracked, and it guarantees that all content included in digital ads is child appropriate.